“Pisaasu”… A terrific addition to one of the most exciting oeuvres in Tamil cinema

The title of Mysskin’s new movie, Pisaasu, suggests a change of pace. After years of dealing with stories about dread, you think the director has opted for a genre – horror – that will allow him to ratchet up the queasiness quotient a couple of notches. But despite the presence of the titular spirit, Pisaasu is very much a companion piece to Anjaathey or Yuddham Sei. Here, too, we have a story that revolves around dark, mystifying occurrences (at interval point, the screen literally turns black) and a procedural-based investigation that, by the end, brings everything to light. Of course, longtime Mysskin watchers will also include the other aspects – visuals, themes, tropes – that position this film firmly in the continuum of his oeuvre. (You may skip the following paragraph if you’re familiar with these signature elements, though a full listing would require an essay of its own.)

The frozen poses. The scenes set in auto-rickshaws and subways, and featuring flower sellers and blind beggars. Characters whose hairstyle obscures part of the face (Prasanna in Anjaathey, Pooja Hegde in Mugamoodi). A character prone to philosophizing, and who is always surrounded by acolytes, is named Plato. Nods to Ilayaraja and a background score that emphasizes solo-violin passages – the protagonist is a violinist who plays mostly sad-sounding pieces. A static camera that records people entering and exiting the frame, and a top-angle shot that gazes at a character railing at God. Also, the unusual selection of shots. You’d think the scene where someone buys a bottle of booze would warrant a wide shot that takes in the liquor shop and a few drunks sprawled around it, and that the scene where a father breaks down upon hearing about his daughter’s death would present itself in a close-up (all the better to record all those tormented emotions on his face) – but it’s the opposite. We see a close shot of extended arms waiting to purchase alcohol, and the father is shown at the far end of a wide shot – he’s so far away we don’t even see his face. Then there are what I like to call the Zen shots. In a scene where a key witness is being interrogated, the camera isn’t even interested in the man – it wanders to someone nearby, washing his hands after a meal. Even the event that kick-starts the film recalls the scene in Onaayum Aattukuttiyum or Anjaathey where the protagonist (Siddharth, played by Naga) stumbles on an accident victim and rushes him (or her, in this case; she’s Bhavani, and she’s played by Prayaga) to the hospital. At one point, a beggar with a harmonium plays the old song Vaadikkai marandhadhum yeno, and you have to laugh – could this be Mysskin’s admission of habits that simply won’t go away?

But these habits are what make his films so compelling. One could argue that Mysskin’s films are essentially rearrangements of his pet visuals and themes and tropes, and part of the fun is waiting to see what form these will now assume. But at least one of his habits isn’t in here, the visual with the woman in the yellow sari. Well, there is a woman in a yellow sari, but I’ll be damned if I know what her function is. (That procedural-based investigation, along with the reason for the apparently random shot with centipedes, will have to wait for future viewings of this film.) The director, instead, turns to a couple of other colours. There’s green – in the name of an auto-rickshaw driver who’s mockingly called Pachai, in the tint of the bottle that brings a fight sequence to an unexpected end, and in the numerous glimpses of vegetation, which sometimes frame the shots. And there’s red – the colour of a pencil, a car, a turban, and also a herring. File away the early shot where Pachai, driving his auto-rickshaw, almost collides with the bike in front of him – you’ll need it for later, when you see it in a new light.

Pisaasu is nominally about Siddharth trying to get rid of the ghost that’s taken residence in his house – but the film is really Mysskin’s idea of a love story, which means it’s light years away from your typical love story. Is there another filmmaker whose work is driven less by the love between hero and heroine and more by the emotions between friends, or brother and sister, or parents and children? I’ll leave it to you to discover what kind of love story this film is, but I will tell you that it upends the trope of love at first sight. (Indeed, the shot that opens the film is that of a pair of eyes.) Those expecting to be scared out their wits, therefore, are bound to be disappointed. This is a ghost a boy could fall in love with. This is a ghost a father could fall in love with. This is a ghost a mother-in-law could fall in love with. Heck, given its views on smoking and drinking, this is a ghost Anbumani Ramadoss could fall in love with. (The film is unexpectedly rich in humour, and the joke I enjoyed most is the mandatory “sarakku scene” of Tamil cinema being turned on its head. Never have bottles seemed so ominous – the beer drips like blood.)

If there’s a complaint, it’s that this love is more an abstract conceit than something that worms its way into our hearts – we don’t quite feel the emotions we’re meant to feel. But this is also a function of the formal nature of the filmmaking, where everything is stylized, almost ritualized. It’s not just the performances that hover somewhere between realism and artifice, something akin to performance art. Mysskin may be the only filmmaker around whose violence is rendered as some sort of poetry. Take the scene of the accident. Instead of screeching brakes and sounds of metal crunching into metal, we get slo-mo visions of grace. And this grace extends to the characters as well. A brute husband is helped by the very women he’s brutalized. Siddharth empathizes with a father (Radharavi, who aces a tour de force scene that has him on all fours) even though he has genuine reasons to hate the man. Even a biryani vendor – a man we don’t see for more than five seconds – has his moment of grace, when his assistant chides him that he’s adding too much meat to a plate and he says, “Let the man eat well.”

A film’s fate at the box office is no concern of the critic – and yet, I walked away from Pisaasu wanting it to do well. We need films like this to do well. With most of our movies, we sense pages from the script being transposed, mechanically, to screen – there’s so little that can be called cinema. Mysskin’s cinema is all cinema, and it appears to well up from some place deep within him, some place even he may not be aware of. And he’s at a point now where he can execute the must-haves of commercial cinema in increasingly inventive ways. There’s just one song, and it’s extraordinarily shot – a reminder to other directors that you don’t need to seek beauty in the Alps; you can find it in the heart of the city, if you have a vision and an alert camera. (The framing is exquisite.) And I love the way Mysskin shoots action, which comes with an almost existentialist tinge. There was a time when Mysskin’s movies had stretches that could be termed amateurish, but with Onaayum Aattukuttiyum and Pisaasu, he has overcome those excesses. The filmmaking is more than clean. It’s – and I’m not saying this lightly – pure.

Had the opportunity to watch this fdfs this morning at Sathyam and ever since was waiting for your thoughts. I personally found the experience to be gratifying. One of the most intriguing things about Mysskin is how the poetry involved each scene and the deftness of its handling shrouds the minor flaws involved. The climax and the revelation involved was easy to guess. It could have been a focal point of discussion had it not worked. But it did and there lies the touch of Mysskin. It prompts me to look for logic, but with so much deftness involved in its execution, I really dont care. I had the same experience with Onnayum Aatukutiyum. I am ready to fall for the conceit.

However if there was one thing that I had a problem with, it was the existence of love especially . Again it mirrors to what you’ve written and I personally cannot agree more.

On a side note, I had the opportunity to view the movie with a host of ADs, crew and cast members of the film and even a few distinguished contemporary directors amongst the audience. They were hooting in the end alright but am not sure if it was entirely positive.

Just now completed my night show with Pisaasu and eager to write about it.
Mysskin’s play on psychology is amazing in the movie.

SPOILERS AHEAD

I want to mention one.

When a man sees a similiar kind of phenomenon again and again, he is getting used to it. Consequently, he will fall for that.

Same thing happened in a movie

Auto driver’s nick name is Pachhai, he sees Green car and forgets about the other one and also accidently when he sees Green color traffic signal turns on.

and the scene goes.

And also in Title card, Mysskin had put his thanks to Professors of University of Michigan. Based on the film, I can conclude that
“the demon/pisasu will never exists, when the body of the dead one is incinerated rather than being buried”

(In relation to my first comment) – turns out that was not a link you posted, rather it was a follow-on suggestion thrown up by youtube once I watched the trailer you posted on your page. Those interested can watch the 5 minute clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4BkYBfnYZA

@Rangan: Sorry to digress… I am relieved to find out that you haven’t succumbed to the Twitter snobbery by forcing yourself to write the review of PK on the first Friday itself. Reviews aren’t meant to be typed on smartphones. It’s good to see the good old Rangan who takes his time to write. Cheers.

Mysskin’s scenes might have become less amateurish but his protagonist’s acting skills seemed to me to demonstrate an inverse graph. There are shots where you could almost listen to the ‘action’ coming from the director’s mouth.

And although the shots had soul when viewed individually, them put together – the movie lacked any soul or depth. Maybe it is this soul wandering around as Pisaasu.

There is a striking similarity and contrast in the opening shots of this movie and Onaayum… Both begin with an accident victim being shown. In Onaayum, it is a long shot from up above – reminding us of Hitchkock. In Pisasu, it is an extreme close up which reminded me of how the Argentinian movie El Aura’s opening shot of the epileptic protagonist.

I see more than a few think this film did not need to be a love story.

But how can it be otherwise? What is this movie if not about Man’s near irrational fear of domesticity and marriage and about Woman’s equally irrational urge to stick with the man who destroys her everyday or at once? This is indeed a marriage-in-crisis film that takes the “en pondati oru pei” sort of gynophobia and turns it on its head, quite literally.

Rangan …only you could have come up with such an exquisite write-up. I loved the film ..and after reading this, I love the film even more.

Like the first person who commented, I watched the film FDFS at Satyam (had traveled from Hyderabad to watch FDFS). Once the end credits rolled in, I waited for it get over. I got up, turned..was surprised to see the leads, MD Arrorl and Kaarthik Subbaraj :). And a bigger surprise was seeing my God Mysskin & DOP Ravi Roy waiting outside the Seasons’ screen to receive the audience and patiently listen to our response.

I was like that little kid whose wish was granted by Santa … I managed to shake hands with him twice and also managed to get some photos with him 🙂 (what a day!!).

With OA & now Pisaasu, I firmly believe Mysskin has no further dreams of commercial cinema…he’s decided to focus on what he does best … pure cinema where everything has a reason to exist (i.e. no unwanted songs, duets, kuthu songs,..).

Like another user had commented … the twist per se isn’t a twist. We have a gut feel as to who the culprit was. The only question that was itching inside me “Couldn’t be that person simply because the timing does not work out”. But man, that touch with the apples & final revealing shot of the accident was a clincher. It is the way in which it was taken that suckered me in. Plus, showing the emotions of a “pisaasu” was unexpected..at the hands of a lesser Director, this would have been a joke.

Rohan Nair: Okay, that “first night” line sounds funny, but the retort doesn’t make sense. Songs aren’t LITERAL or REALISTIC constructions. They are a STYLISED device to show something that could also be shown in other ways, and the best song picturisations replace dialogues or “passage of time” sequences.

If you feel your films cannot use songs or that you don’t want to force-fit songs into your films, then more power to you. But that doesn’t mean songs cannot exist in a piece of pure cinema. A good director can find a nice way to incorporate even an ordinary hero-heroine duet.

Iswarya: Thanks. With the speed at which I’m expected to turn in reviews these days, mistakes are increasingly creeping in.

Bhavadas: Every good filmmaker — i.e. everyone who is interested in visual composition — uses a combination of shots. I don’t think we can point to one shot and say “this is where it was taken from”.

Just Another Film Buff: Oh, that’s a fantastic reading. As they say in Tamil, you have gone somewhere 🙂

brangan: True..Understood…I probably could have worded it in a better way. The bonding shared between the father and the daughter was well established and tangible, but I couldnt feel the same about the love between the pisaasu and the protagonist. [Spoiler ahead] For instance, the protagonist mentioning to the girl’s father that if she had survived, he would asked her hand for marriage and the father’s repeated acknowledgment of his daughter’s love for the hero in the end were just mere words and nothing more.

” But that doesn’t mean songs cannot exist in a piece of pure cinema. A good director can find a nice way to incorporate even an ordinary hero-heroine duet.”

I wonder if the increasing Hollywoodization of our movies means that we are losing out on this aspect. Earlier when you heard a song, you would automatically associate it with the film, its characters and its particular relevance to the film. Today, a song seems to be just that. A song.

@rangan
Just got back from watching Pisaasu and about to start reading your review.
Just one thought right now: I don’t do drugs, have never had a spiritual experience, but I surely do see Mysskin’s movies and for me, that beats all.

The fellow is a freaking genius to whom the entire industry is doing a huge disservice by releasing his films in single shows for not more than a week. The same shit happened to Aaranya Kaandam, the same shit happened to Onayum Aattukuttiyum, and now Pisaasu. As a member of the audience, I am feeling guilty. I know I am going a bit overboard but seriously, we ought to be thanking our stars that we are living in the times of such greats. Unfortunately, tamil audiences are only marginally more evolved than their neanderthal cousins in the rest of india, and so the likes of Mysskin continue to languish in the sidelines while we shower attention on moronic shit like Maan Karate and Lingaa. I wish the audience for tamil movies was bigger(like for Hindi), so that the sheer size of the market would allow these films to hold their own and make some noise. The current scenario is extremely disquieting.

@rangan
I thought I was the only guy who was deeply affected in this way, and then I read the last paragraph of your review… so glad to find a kindred spirit.

Rangan, can you do me favor? If you ever happen to meet/interview Mysskin in future(please do try), could you ask him why he doesn’t(or can’t get to) do films with well-known heroes? Is it because he had to compromise on things like forced songs and scenes in Mugamoodi or was it because of Mugamoodi’s failure? I would be keenly interested to know his reply. His is a talent that should not be allowed to go unrecognized.

And, as you rightly said, his cinematic work after Mugamoodi is pure…pure genius, I would say.

the woman in the yellow sari you referred to… is that the fat lady the camera revolves around in one of the scenes where Siddharth is trying to trace the killer at the police station? I ask because I cannot quite recollect the colour of the fat lady’s saree. But I was struck by her intense expression and mystified as to her purpose in a scene where she is just overhearing the conversation. Of course, a moment later it occurred to me that Bhavani’s spirit could have been possessing her while trailing Siddharth in his investigation.

Also, I disagree that the song is an innovative means of including commercial necessities. In my view, music in Mysskin’s films have often been a part of “his vision”, whether the dark/pathos-inducing BGM’s or the “yellow-saree” and bar songs. The only “commercial” compromise he used to make occasionally in his more “main-stream” offerings is the “dream song”. In this film, except for some juvenile comedy in a scene where Siddharth and his friend are caught by the policemen outside their flat in their undies, I couldn’t find anything that echoes commercial cinema.

And I just realized that one of the reasons this film works so brilliantly is its indian feel to love. Bhavani’s spirit is not attracted to Siddharth but, rather, falls in love with his kind, righteous nature(as are all Mysskin’s heroes). Most of her ghostly manifestations are all a part of this love: She covers him with blankets, she doesn’t want him to continue to drink, she doesn’t like his friends coming over and sleeping next to him and occupying her space(there is a split-second shot where she is shown to be sitting next to him after pushing his friend down), she cares for her could-have-been mother-in-law, she even fixes the vase that he breaks after a “angry husband” rant that she bears silently like a “good wife”…
She is also a loving daughter who longs to see her father at her “husband’s house”, which is why the long-drawn out “appa……” comes two times, the second after Siddharth’s attempt to exorcise her out of his house comes to naught. The point of that scene isn’t that the voodoo woman is a con artist; if so, that “appa…….” was not necessary. The point is that she doesn’t want to leave him anymore.

Mysskin revels in pathos. While Onaayum Aattukuttiyum played on the themes of justice and redemption to build up the pathos quotient, in Pisaasu, the primary device was good old-fashioned love.

I loved both; perhaps Onaayum Aattukuttiyum just a little more. But I think audiences have taken to this one better. Just praying that Mysskin gets his due and continues in this brilliant vein.

Did you realize that many people might just randomly confuse oeuvre with genre and miss your high regards for Mysskin’s body of work? Most folks are ignorant and most of the ignorant are also too lazy to know or compensate for their ignorance. I know I am splitting hairs here but still..

I was watching his interview yesterday in one of the channels and he said I wanted the hero’s hairstyle to cover one of his eyes. Because he sees the world through only one eye. I was amazed at the level of detailing or should I say poetry he adds to something as simple as a hairstyle. I am feeling so bad that a film maker like him is not getting the recognition he deserves. My heart broke when I knew OA was being shown of TV barely three or four weeks after its release. Another movie that released along with this even though it was a cover up of an earlier movie went on to break BO records. Why cant this audience appreciate different cinema atleast once in a while. I do hope n pray that this movie does well commercially and we get to see more movies like this.

Echo that question from aravind86 about releasing his films in the rest of the country.

Also what about subtitling? “Rads” , the professional subtitlist might be able to tell us if he has approached her or more pertinently if she has approached him and what his response was. We see her commenting on this blog once in a while.

Rangan — Nice review of “Pisaasu.” I like how you call out attention to filmmakers such as Myskin and David Fincher and appreciate the “cinema” aspect of their films more than just writing. Myshkin is a great combination of style and substance. His themes and writing are as strong as his directorial acumen is. I think the lack of evolution from good writing to good filmmaking is what cost the likes of K Bhagyaraj dear. But I do think that there are certain genres such as satire (“Amaidhi Padai”) and comic drama (“Aaha”) where writing almost obscures the lack of a more gripping cinematic vision…what say you?

Rohan Nair, btw, are you referring to “Rekhs,” the subtitlist? Rekhs is my Aunt…but please confirm before I reach out to her!

was so excited watching the movie.Is this all happening in tamil cinema?.have to pinch myself.wish you had mentioned a bit about the philosophy part of the movie.What is god and what is devil?.How every time god is invoked in the movie, it is curse him for his wrong doings.And there are a few mentions of the Pisasu as “Deivam” in the movie.The brilliance of myskin is how the movie works at every level.The unanalyzing common man likes the movie as much as the critics.I felt this is not a horror movie , but a sweet romantic one.There is so much love and compassion in this movie.What if you met the love of your life at your last breath……. pisassu 🙂

Enjoyed the movie, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a better hero available. Even the Onayum hero could’ve done well here. The acting in the scene before taking his mom to the hospital was terrible.

It is immensely gratifying to read to a “raving” review about a movie that is indeed worth raving about! Mysskin has erased genre dividers and presented a truly “pure” film indeed.

BTW, we are of the opinion that the centipedes are an ode to the color red, which is a critical facet of the movie.

I also found the nuance of the inverted signal a great play – agreed that it indicates that the auto driver is indeed “red-blind” but why have the green at the top and red at the bottom – traditionally (and I assume legally!) that is not the case. I find that again an obeisance to the color cruciality!

Brilliant movie indeed. And with the release of The Babadook last week in Bangalore, it’s been a very satisfying experience for horror-movie fans, even if Pissassu isn’t really the scary type. (And please watch The Babadook for its treatment of posession and how it can be subverted)

I felt that, apart from the main lead, the acting of the rest of the cast was quite decent. Radha Ravi was excellent, but I wonder why it sounded like Thambi Ramaiah dubbed for him! The last 30 minutes of the movie was highly emotional for me, and I cried quite freely through most of that stretch.

SPOILER ALERT
But what was the whole thing about burning vs burial? It seemed “jarring” (I am not sure if that’s the word I want to use, but for now, I’ll stick to that) that that would become such an important point of discussion. In my experience of horror literature, I don’t think I have seen too many references to this. But the way it was put forth in the movie made it seem quite commonplace (and a bit too frivolously, if I may add). Is that really true? Yes, vampires (in most schools) might come with a “burning is better than burial” theory, but is this true for general ghosts/spirits?
END OF SPOILER

The cinematography, even if it has certain traces from his earlier work, seems to be, overall, quite different. And, personaly, I preferred the former, especially Anjaathey and Yuddham Sei. There seemed to be a “tightness” to the frame that was lacking here. But if this means Mysskin is trying out different techniques along with genres, more power to him, I guess.

Prakash: Yes, I was referring to the old woman with the big pottu in the police station. She came up and began to glare at Siddharth. I knew something spooky was up, but couldn’t quite put my finger on WHAT, exactly.

itsmesri: Because he sees the world through only one eye.

Hmmm… then what was the purpose of the similar styling of the heroine in “Mugamoodi”, I wonder. Or was that just her natural style?

Also, I wonder if he conceived the Prasanna character in “Anjaathey” the same way — that character had a similarly attention-calling hairstyle too.

Ram Murali: Yes, satire and comedy and so on — i.e. the generally story-driven type of films — don’t really need a “gripping cinematic vision.” Even pk is no great shakes as “cinema.” But it makes us laugh and we don’t care about the other aspects.

Rudy: From a screenwriting POV, the “paa” is necessary to establish the character — so when the fake-medium says “paa” again we know for sure that this ghost is the girl we saw at the beginning.

As for what that word means, I’m not sure. But as I came out, I remembered what Radharavi said — that he’d been asking his daughter to get married and she said she’d let him know if/when she found a guy. And now she’s found the guy, and she’s beginning to tell her dad, “Paa… I’ve found the guy.” But she never got beyond that first word. That could be one way to read it.

sridhar270: I swear. At first, I too felt it was Thambi Ramaiah and not Radharavi.

That burning vs burial, I think, was also a tip of the hat to Hindu ritual. ( Vampires aren’t Hindu, exactly 😉 ) That’s why the car goes up in flames at the end. Also interesting is the contrast between ice and fire.

As for the cinematography, I found it REALLY good.⁬ Yes, it wasn’t as “soft” or “lush” as those earlier films you mentioned, but the hard colours (I guess it was shot in DV?) really suited the “spare” nature of the film. Why did you feel the frames weren’t tight? Any particular shot? I thought the framing in general was pretty awesome.

Mysskin is one of three or four directors in Tamil cinema who knows what he wants in a shot and how to achieve it. Consistently, I mean. Most others just think cinematography = pretty pictures.

@brangan, but here’s the thing – even in Hindus, there is an x% of people who bury and not burn, as part of their custom. I am not fully sure what value x is, but there’s a good possibility that this x (or a majority of it) could represent the so-called “lower castes”. Hence, my confusion.

[Will try to check what the actual percentage is]

END OF SPOILERS

Regarding the cinematography, take the song for example. There were some scenes that seemed almost to swing on both axes. I could be wrong, but I don’t think there was any such freedom of camera movement in CP, Y or AS. In those movies, the frames were fixed-angle or pan-shots and maybe, some jimmy-jibs, I think.

Maybe it struck me as odd because I loved the frames of A, YS so much, and I sub-consciously equate Mysskin’s auteur skills to those frames (among other things, of course).

One explanation of the “Paa..” could be that the girl had earlier promised her father that she would let him know soon as she found her man. Of course, the father isn’t present in the death-scene, but if ever he got down to talking to Siddharth, he’d get to know that the last thing she pronounced was a call to her father and a clinging gesture towards the man, which pieced together would be a indication of “This is the man I’d always been waiting for.”

sridhar270: Oh, the axial movement in the song was also due to the location. The camera was following people as they came from left, right, from straight on — and he didn’t use the typical tracking shots. Brilliant idea to position the girl in the centre, by the pillar – so that you can catch people from all directions streaming past her. The camera was almost like a ‘head swivelling on a neck’. I loved the way the song was shot.

Darn my slow browser, I say. BR posted the same explanation just after I realised I had clicked “Post Comment.”

Anyway the movie had so much to like about, especially in its companion-piece quality to OA. The end credits also had a similar format, both being reflections on the theme of guilt and redemption. While OA had no room for laughs, this one had so man instances of sly humour, even while they carried the story forward or revealed aspects of the characters. For instance, the hoax phone call that Siddharth’s friend makes to his mother was filled with refreshing touches mocking real human weaknesses.

The horror movie must-haves were taken for a ride, too. The medium Aavi Amala was such a funny touch, so reminiscent of Madame Sosostris (of The Waste Land ). The way she mechanically reads out some boilerplate tripe about the “dosham” in his family when the random scratchings on her notebook are foregrounded was the most wryly hilarious part.

@brangan, I too loved how it was shot, but found it different. Of course, amazing singing by Utthara as well.

— SPOILERS —
Regarding the burning vs burial, initial research does seem to indicate that burial is more common in so-called lower castes, and, hence, could actually be more common than cremation among Hindus. Which would make the fixation in the movie even more confounding.

Unless, it was broaching a new-ish theory, in which case, it didn’t come through that clearly. The impression I got was, “oh ya, everyone knows x is obviously better than y for putting ghosts to rest, so let’s go to the next step asap”.
— END SPOILERS —

@Iswarya V“While OA had no room for laughs, this one had so man instances of sly humour”

Pardon me, but OA had its share of sly(and inventive) humour too, for instance in scenes with the policemen at gunpoint or the initial exchanges between Wolf and Chandru. Atleast some of the humour in Pisaasu seemed to border on the trite, but not so in OA, where even the dark tone of the homour seemed to sync well with the rest of the film. And maybe the humour was slightly less and not as uniformly sprinkled in OA, but that is a function of the inherent differences in requirements. Anyways, as you have yourself said(and I agree with you on this), Pisaasu seemed very much a companion piece to OA in spirit(pardon the pun 🙂 ).

Also, while both movies had guilt and redemption as primary themes, there was a latent emphasis in both (more so in OA) on the duty of the strong to protect the weak and the innocent. I liked that.

In times when directors routinely champion morally subversive and indefensibly wrong attitudes, movies like OA and Pisaasu come as much-needed respite. Kudos to Myshkin, a director with an unerring moral compass.

Another pleasure with Mysskin in both OA and Pisaasu is the way he deals with moralising in his films.Unlike the movies of other serious directors of the same vibe like Ram,Balaji Sakthivel,you don’t feel the urge of the director to change the society or to chase the spoilt-city aliens,innocent rural dwellers template.He just wants to narrate a story in his own manner with every nuance falling organic within those movie universes,there isn’t an single scene in both these films where you fell manipuated…….Something I find very rare in present day tamil cinema,barring very few new-gen exceptions…….

Maybe i’m late in writing here (with respect to the date of the review), but i thought i should add my little thoughts to this review.

Apart from the points that have been mentioned in the review by Brangan, I thought i will mention a few more, hope its not too late for someone not to read…

One is the scene in which the Color of the car is revealed to the hero. There is a plastic vessel in the hands of the girl that leaks water symbolising that the color story of the car has been punctured, the color of the Vessel being Pachai !

The other is the scene where the hero puts a knife in the man’s neck in the barber shop. What a wry humor. Imagine the plight of the man who has a knife in his neck when being shaved and being asked a question???

Last but not the least, the sandal of the girl after the accident in close up shot, which reads “Princess”, clearly showing how she was being treated by her family,

And yes. I was stumped by the Centipedes. Maybe the hero is moving towards the truth in the speed of the centipedes?

@Pranesh, I should have mentioned – mine was also a very basic research by asking people I know. The net didn’t give me anything conclusive. A few people I know mentioned the caste-based distinction. Still looking for proper verified references …

Im late to this thread. Im curious to understand. In the scene when Radha Ravi comes to Siddharth’s house, he first keeps lighter in the table. I couldn’t read that scene well. Did Radha Ravi sob after he got convinced that it was his daughter who was trying to avoid his dad from smoking? Or Am I missing anything here?

I enjoyed the movie and the review. But not at all surprised by the climax. As a matter of fact I guessed exactly who is the culprit, as soon as the procedural aspect started. Because of the Malayalam movie MUMBAI POLICE.

In Mumbai Police hero Prudhviraj is a cop and he is given with the responsibility of solving a murder case. The most important clue is the green car. An elderly woman saw it parked right below a street light. Later the cop realizes that actually thats a blue car which appeared green because of the yellow street light. And finally he is the one owns that car and he is the killer himself. He has some memory loss problems.

As usual, a great treat from Mysskin… apart from the well noticed ” Mysskin moments” (which I started liking from Anjaathey days), I am happy this film does not lose his two other regulars too : soul-stirring music, his finesse in story telling

udhaysankar: Unlike the movies of other serious directors of the same vibe like Ram,Balaji Sakthivel,you don’t feel the urge of the director to change the society…

This should be said a few million times. I am horrified by how many viewers — even today!! — equate “good cinema” with “cinema that has a good theme and/or message.” It’s as if some filmmakers take up subjects just because they think these subjects “worthy”or some such crap instead of thinking “this subject will make for good cinema.” It’s horrifying, I tell you, having to endure this sort of “noble thoughts” movie.

I had no clue about what this movie is all about. Is it for some intellectual audience alone? What is the director trying to convey through this movie. The technical part (music, cinematography etc ) was brilliant. But the story did not touch me (my soul) , my brain or my heart.

I am horrified by how many viewers — even today!! — equate “good cinema” with “cinema that has a good theme and/or message.”

but don’t you think that is a false dichotomy when you think themes or messages are not a pre-requisite for a good cinema…i mean i still feel Myskkin is a master story teller, but i cannot locate the characters’ social grounding in them…for example his narrative style in Yuddham Sei was simply marvellous, but i do not know what is his world view is, regarding rape or how it needs to be addressed…basically it was a vigilante movie of retribution…i mean Mahanadhi or Anbe Sivam were remarkable not only on the cinematic front, but also on the theme that they addressed or chose to show…characters do not simply vacillate in vacuum without their social underpinings…overlooking them is simply not honest

The last movie I watched in 2014 was the latest collection of Mysskin’s Mysskinisms. I found the movie to be a play on the “To err is human; to forgive, divine” idea, more than a love story. There is the girl who dies as a result of the boy’s error, but she wills herself to forgive him – we know the spirit is kind, for she saves his mother, prevents him from drinking, and so on. Both the boy and the father find no peace. The father harbours thoughts of vengeance, the boy is still unaware that it is he who killed her. Towards the end of the movie, when he finds out the truth (and we finally see his face in its entirety), he must now have the courage to forgive himself for his mistake, and the father must find the strength to forgive the boy. When all of this takes place, the titular Pisasu finally leaves them. Radha Ravi gets to mouth dialogues such as “En ponnu saami madhiri”, and I thought maybe she really is supposed to come across as divine, as she forgave.

I was a bit underwhelmed to see a creepy looking doll fly about though.. We are shown a beautiful girl, maybe an angel of sorts, and we could have just felt her presence in the movie, instead of seeing her as a physical object, as this doll living in the chimney. And it didn’t help that people in the audience kept saying things like “Indha bommai oda andha payyan oda hairstyle dhaan bayama irukku”.. 🙂

my doubts about mysskin’s social justice seems to be confirmed with the characterisations wherein a good woman is the one who is docile, takes care of her in laws and so on ( a very tamil serialisque)…

in one of his interview on why there are no songs in OA he said if he planted a duet for the film it has to be either a prostitute or “thappannava” because according to him a “good” woman will not roam at that hour!

heck i think this sort of misogyny is even more dangerous than Rajnikanth as it is very subtle and handles regressiveness with lot of sophistication

he is a master story teller was never in doubt, but he disappoints in his characterisations where you do not see protagonists who are women, or from lower social strata…can never locate the characters’ identity beyond what they represent in films

to know how these social identities play a negative role and result in alienation, violence and deaths i recommend this documentary which shows how films like thevar magan among many helped in caste polarisation in TN within and outside the film industryhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GOoI4zNEOmI

a similar commentary along gender would be worthwhile and welcome in understanding tamil cinema better

The screen has remained blank for a second. Everything in the story is over, the film could also be over so has the film ended? there is supposed to be credits right? The blank screen is still there. Some claps can be heard from the front end of theatre. Then the credits come up. Was the few seconds of blank screen the director telling us that the film is over thank you for watching? Few distributed claps here and there people stand up and leave.

As in previous works of mysskin the characters here too are hard to relate.whether its Purushothaman’s family in yudham sei or the eccentric villian cum boss in Onaayum Aattukkuttiyum or sidharth in pisaasu.Here the lead character sidharth while his mother is bleeding with a head injury, instead of rushing her to hospital we see him rushing towards the house, facing the kitchen where the ghost was previously seen.. he is shouting, venting his anger, blaming the ghost for it. later returning. Unlike say a film like naduvula konjam pakatha kaanum, where we can relate to the gang of friends which is a story of ordinary people in out of ordinary circumstances
for mysskin’s it seems is the story of out of ordinary people in ordinary circumstances.

The ghost has actually helped his mother,in turn the same scene make us sympathetic towards the ghost, towards its character misunderstood which hardly makes an appearance,is some solid writing.The genre setting reminds of The Conjuring, technically this film looks as brilliant, which is an achievement considered the limited budget of the film. This is essentially a mysskin’s movie that one can enjoy with the whole family.

A reader named Aadithya Nandakumar emailed me this excellent set of observations and asked me to share. Happy to…

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Dear Mr. Rangan,

I love the candour and joy with which you write movie reviews. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a person in your position to write reviews for a large readership in a conservative (more than one way) society

I saw Mysskin’s Pisasu yesterday (I have seen only onaayum aatukuttiyum before) and though a second viewing would clarify some of the intricately embedded details, some preliminary thoughts that I wanted to share:

1. The most telling moment of the movie came when they were showing previews and they showed one of Yennai Arindhaal, where someone asks Vivek – “Neenga Kalyaanam en pannikala?” to which he replies “enakku pei naa bayam”. If only Gautam Menon knew.

2. The film starts with an accident as a ominous foreboding of marriage (which itself upends the conventional notion of arranged/love marriage) that leaves a deep scar on our protagonist.

3. Thereafter it deals heavily with the duality of the four primary characters – the son, the father, the mother, the daughter and the way they deal with the ‘tragedy’.

A. In an inverse study of a marriage, the son is afraid to commit permanently to a married life and yet is willing to go to any lengths to avenge his corpse bride (Tim Burton, listen up!). When he falls in love with her, he has to let her go.

B. The mother who in a way does not want to relinquish the hold she has on her son (she threatens to have him married) learns to trust the daughter-in-law figure.

C. The bride, who protects the very person who hurt her (mirrored in the story of the couple who live below) but causes harm to anyone who is a threat. I especially loved the inversion of tropes from cliched tamil movies where the hero drinks every night after a dissatisfied marriage and spends most of his time with his friends (The bride yanks the friend away from him when he poses a threat to the ‘marital’ bed).

D. And finally, the father who wants to give the daughter away so badly that he is almost disinterested in the groom search, thereby holding on to her (so much so that he freezes her image). When he does come to terms with his grief, he unsuspectingly trusts his ‘son-in-law’ and does not believe him when he says that he killed his daughter. In his weakness, he blames god.

4. Some mirroring with images (I am sure I missed a lot) – the blind girl/the mentally challenged boy (both have an extrasensory perception of the ghost), Plato/priestess (the bum philosopher/black magician, both fakes, both literally try to steal), the transformation of the hero shown through many mirror images (one examplewhen he threatens to cut his own throat/threatens to cut the throat of the thief)

5. I loved the little touches like the tea stand guy’s standard dialogues, the ghost fixing the elevator (since she is used to operating forklift type mechanisms in the ice factory), the wise auto driver who offers them assistance when they go to the stand first, the use of colloquial speech mannerisms like the wife calling her husband ‘chandru appa’ to a third person, the scene with the hospital receptionist and watchman. This list could go on as the film is entirely composed of such stretches and details meshed together seamlessly.

6. I also love the way he shoots action. Although I was a little caught up to tell, the pace of the cutting intensifies when there is hurry, but there is always a reflective pause or thrust shot that stops to take the pulse of the fighters. Very visceral.

7. Someone complained to me that the lead character was flat. I think it came across that way as he seemed to be continually caught up in the events engulfing him with nary a second to breathe. In a film where the secondary characters are richer than the lead characters of many films, I think it is unfair to call the lead underdeveloped.

8. There was an interesting reaction from some audience members when the three women carried the injured man down the stairs. Some people almost clapped, but restrained themselves.

Too sleepy to remember anything else. I would love it if you could share this with your readers.

Please keep up your excellent work. Now, I am off to watch the movies I missed out from your top twenty.

Sanjay Kumar K: a good woman is the one who is docile, takes care of her in laws and so on ( a very tamil serialisque)…

I don’t think this is an issue with this particular film, as the ghost happens to be (in your words) “a very tamil serialisque” woman — that’s just how the girl is, and surely there are people like that, who deserve to be showcased even if they don’t fit into the “modern woman” paradigm.

The key thing that points to this ghost’s “domestic nature” — more than the “take care of in-laws” bit; more than the “kallaanaalum kanavan” (rather, “konnaalum kanavan”) bit, more than the “I love my daddy bit” — is WHERE she takes up residence in her “husband’s” house.

She prefers the kitchen, near the stove — aduppadila vendhukittu, and all that. And the only other place we see her (of her own volition) is the bedroom. Like many housewives of a particular kind, her life is between the kitchen and the bedroom.

am i to presume that it is a problem in his other movies? i do get a nagging doubt that his worldview is no different from say a perarusu as far as the roles of woman or men in society is concerned…what differentiates himself from perarusu is his maverick and very intense cinema…

This movie isnt scary per se.. but a haunting one… its been two weeks since iv watched dis movie bt stil cant take out the visuals from my head… d underlying theme of loss, guilt, unrequited love is superbly shown.. n dat too, purportedly, in a HORROR movie!!! wen we watch a movie and come out of the theater… v usually discuss abt a particular sequence was good, or that action sequence was gud.. bt dis movie is grt in whole, after the movie got done, der was drop dead silence wen i was heading back with 3 of my cousins.. a walk of of a gud 2 kms.. it wasnt of fear bt of wat dey had watched… dis kind of thought provoking happend wen the end credits of Interstellar rolled on…brilliant movie!!!

Two insights. A Cinderella angle was unmistakable for me. Has anyone touched on it yet? Surprised I didn’t see any yet. Cinderella is the daughter of a widower (why else would Radha Ravi say “thaayillaadha poNNu doctor…” in a longshot when whatever the father says (quite literally a பொலம்பல்) would be considered as nothing more than பொலம்பல்). Cinderella is abused by her stepmother (the man who destroys everything he loves is a beautiful Mysskin subversion looked at from this perspective) and more keyly, curls up near the fireplace to stay warm for the night (chimney ghost inga 😉 quite literally by the fireplace) and as always, awoke covered in the cinders (the ghost does look sooty and this could be reading too much), did not tell her dad about her abusive stepmother since she controlled him so much (the abovementioned subversion here in the Indian tradition of a wife’s compassion). And as a final clincher, both leave their men a slipper who treasure it and eventually solve her mystery. Above all, she is a paragon of virtues and does forgive everyone of their excesses (stepmom, stepsisters). The compassion is a very prevalent feature in that fairy tale. Trust Mysskin to subvert a fairy tale into a “horror” film!!

Secondly, and this is more of a footnote, Sidharth watches over his mom sleeping and portraits of Mozart and Beethoven watch over the haunted house somberly. The masters were watching, y’all.

PS: The thug who keeps hitting Sidharth repeatedly in the subway and who tries stabbing him. His name? Gautam! Deeply #Meta

VenkateswaranGanesan (@_Drunkenmunk): What an amazing reading. Wow. Just wow.

It’s a reflection of how strong (and how “non-spoon-feeding”) the writing is when a film allows ONE dominant reading for general viewers and MANY other readings for those who wish to dig deeper.

Thanks for sharing.

Did you watch “Madras”, BTW? I read a part of the film as a horror movie (it’s there in my review), and that’s a reading not many seemed to bring up. Would be interested in your thoughts on this angle/reading.

Aah missed Madras last year. Hearing Vijay TV’s lined it up for Pongal. Shall catch up soon and get back.

And Just Another Film Buff had more insights to share on twitter and a couple of friends from a self-anointed “Oho Productions” 😛 had a bunch of lovely readings, which are all in this link: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sjtdf4

And I realize Mysskin has mentioned the Cinderella angle in an interview with Madan. Will need to catch up on that first.

Just finished watching. And apologies for linking from the spot where I was watching. The interview’s a keeper 🙂 Initially when he speaks about doing away with the cliches (for example, Plato looks into the chimney and we’d expect her to take him in the way Aavi amala was, but no, no cliches, she comes from an unsuspecting living room), I was reminded of Hitchcock’s interview on doing away with cliches in an interview on North By Northwest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_7Es1h0eQ). No relations to either plot/location or angles but the idea is quite there 🙂

Also, the mirroring of an abusive husband beneath their house (reflected subtly in their household, a la JAFB’s reading) is a Ramayana trope 😛 Ravana kidnaps Seetha and that is mirrored in Vaali kidnapping Ruma. And you do see the old world tropes of compassion and sacrifice of a woman in the midst of abuse (a woman’s place is in her kitchen is quite literally true here, but not in the deeply patriarchal way we’re used to). I like how Mysskin exploits this 🙂

In one of Suki Sivam’s discourses, he makes a funny observation about ghosts and humans. “Pinam enbadhu uyirattra udal. Pisaasu enbadhu udalattra uyir. So pisaasu + pinam = manithan”. I thought it was quite unusual and poignant shot towards the end of the movie when the ghost is seen with the deadbody for one last time as she is burned to flames. In some of the spiritual literature I have read, ghosts are talked about as beings who lose the sense of discrimination. They are simply bundles of certain impulses. It was a delight to see the director showcasing the character of the ghost with a loving impulse. At first, we see that the ghost holds her dad’s cheek in love. But, when the dad talks of avenging his daughter’s death, she takes her hand off her dad’s cheek. I loved that touch. So beautiful.

That is a very common feature of lower-middle-class or lower-upper-middle-class conversation. In fact, in the case of wives using it about their husbands, it’s the most common polite form of reference among a certain class of people. My grandmother and aunts refer to their husbands that way when they speak to neighbours. Children from neighbouring households, especially if they are not very close friends of yours, would call your parents ‘your name’s mom’. Of course, if they are close to you, your parents become auntie and uncle to them.